Forestry machines in the form of feller/bunchers have a saw head on the front end of the machine with a spinning disk at the bottom of the saw head. A plurality of cutting teeth are mounted to the periphery of the spinning disk at spaced apart intervals, which serves as a saw blade for the cutting of trees. A feller/buncher has articulated fingers that grasp the trees as they are being cut and are used for the purpose of positioning the trees at a desired location on the ground. This is accomplished by the power and dexterity of the feller/buncher.
The feller/buncher typically has a pivoting boom which operates in a channel between a cab and an engine assembly. The pivoting boom pivots about a single horizontal axis, allowing the boom to move in a prescribed manner relative to the axis about which it pivots. The channel between the cab and the engine assembly is an area in which certain hydraulic and electrical assemblies are located related to the manipulation of the boom. Debris would fall into this channel and, in an attempt to mitigate the problem, a debris guard was developed which was attached to the boom in a pivoting manner. The debris guard pivots relative to the boom and the debris guard slides within the channel between the engine and the cab as the boom moves about its pivoting axis.
A problem with the current debris guards is that, even though they travel with the boom and pivot relative thereto, the fixed location of debris guard causes a vertical gap between the debris guard and the channel depending upon the position of the boom.
What is needed in the art is a feller/buncher with a debris guard that reduces the debris entering into the channel along the sides of the debris guard.